he meant it to sound reassuring to conservatives, like that is fine, we don't need the debt ceiling, we have the big spending cuts, democrats will never allow those. i can't see why they're reassured. to see this as a deal, you have to remember where they were when they created the cuts in the first place, back in the 2011 fight. the way we got out of that mess, we kicked the can down the road and formed the super committee. you remember the super committee, the bipartisan group of legislators are charged with finding 1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, that was plan b to the super committee, if they failed, which they did, the sequester would cut the deficit by the same 1.2 trillion, but it would do it right away, and in such a mindless, painful dumb way that neither party could live with it. it was meant, then to force the parties to make the deal. punishment. and that was an obvious design, you build half the sequester out of tax increases, which republicans hate, and then the other out of spending cuts which democrats hate. but republicans refused to vote for anything with taxes i